Self-Experimentation
by Cybercitizen
Summary: While closing up one night at her clinic in Geneva, Angela Ziegler discovers her estranged lover, Moira, banging on the door. After helping her inside, Angela discovers something horrific... Moira has been infected with a virus and Angela is the only one who can save her. (Moircy, Canon, Angst)


Night had fallen on Geneva. Storm clouds gathered overhead as rain cascaded down, as if the heavens themselves were weeping. Dr. Angela Ziegler walked through her darkened clinic, closing up for the night.

As she cleared the paperwork off of her desk, her eyes fell on a small framed picture. It was of herself and a tall, slender woman with slicked-down ginger hair, standing together in front of a sign which read "Hanamura Welcomes You" in both English and Japanese.

She sighed, picking up the picture. It had been nearly a month since she had last heard from her estranged lover Moira O'Deorain. The two of them had maintained a strong professional rivalry for years, but after spending a night together following a medical conference in Numbani, they had also kindled a secret romance. Their relationship had grown strained when Moira had left to join Talon, while Angela herself had elected to side with Overwatch. But in spite of their differing ideals, they were still very much in love.

She was pulled from her reverie when she heard the sound of someone pounding on the glass doors which were the entrance to her clinic.

Angela looked up, walking towards the door. _Who could that be?_ she wondered to herself. No one would want to come here at this late hour, especially in a storm like that.

She walked to the door, seeing a faint outline of a person slumped by the glass. She couldn't tell if they were male or female, but she knew that they could possibly die out in the cold.

Angela suddenly opened up the door to the clinic. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm..." She suddenly paused. "Closed." Her eyes widened in shock and surprise.

Standing outside in the rain, wearing a rumpled black dress shirt and white slacks, was Moira. Her right sleeve was rolled up, revealing what looked to be glowing purple circuitry working its way up from her hand to her shoulder before disappearing under her skin. Her skin was even more pale than usual, except for that left arm, which was a sickly purple.

"A-An-gela..." she groaned softly, sounding like she was in extreme pain.

Angela's eyes widened. "Oh, _mein Gott_!" She quickly rushed to Moira's side, helping the woman into the reception area of the clinic. "Moira, what are you doing here?"

Moira spluttered, mumbling something in Gaelic that Angela wasn't familiar with. The Irish woman stumbled forward a couple of steps, then collapsed to the floor with an audible grunt.

Angela picked Moira up. "Come on, you're getting a checkup whether you like it or not."

Moira coughed. "Just... stop... talking…."

Angela led Moira to the operating theatre and laid her on a nearby chair. She then gently started to remove Moira's shirt, but as she did so, she saw something that nearly made her throw up.

The "circuitry" on Moira's arm, it turned out, was a series of purple wires and tubes fused to her skin. And the sickly purple colour seemed to be slowly spreading through the veins in her chest, as if it were a parasite taking control of her.

"What…is that?" Angela asked hesitantly.

"So close..." Moira said quietly. "So close to a breakthrough...no test subjects...had no choice...performed the experiment on...on myself..."

Angela gasped. "You insane woman…." She sighed, quickly running a bio-scan of her patient. "You're infected with some kind of virus; it's coursing through your veins at an alarming rate. If I don't stop it spreading, you could die."

"Do you think…I don't know that?" Moira coughed. "Just…fucking fix me." Her head lolled back. " _Dia cabhrú liom_..." she muttered.

Angela sighed. She had been around Moira long enough to know what she had just said: the Irish for "God help me." She then frowned. She may have not always been Moira's biggest fan, but she was a doctor, and Moira was her patient. She had to save her.

"Alright, I'll help you," Angela agreed. "But only because it's my duty as a medical professional."

Moira chuckled. "Same old Angela…a guardian angel to the last."

Angela ran another scan of Moira's arm. "Now, I need you to tell me everything about the experiment you were running."

"It was research...I was trying to create a parasitic virus. And it seems that…I was successful."

"A biological weapon," Angela mused. "That you no doubt intended to sell to the highest bidder."

"Fine," Moira admitted. "It...it is a weapon. But...I wasn't going to sell it. I was...going to use it myself."

"For what?" Angela demanded. "To aid the monsters that you call your colleagues?"

"They're...a necessary evil, Angela. One must...be prepared to...to make sacrifices in the name of science."

"And how far will those sacrifices go?" Angela argued. "How many more people will your experiments harm?"

Moira laughed. "Do you think I'm insane?"

"No, but it wouldn't surprise me." She took out a syringe. "I'm going to inject this biotic gel into your arm. It should slow the virus a little, long enough for me to make an antidote." As Angela injected the serum into Moira, she asked, "Why did you come here? Why come and find me?"

Moira inhaled slowly. "Y-you were the only one I...I knew I could trust. The virus...it was draining me."

"Draining you of what?"

"Of...of my life," the redhead answered. "I designed it...to sap the molecular energy from the target."

Angela's mouth opened in horror. "You...what?!"

Moira smiled a little bit. "You have your Valkyrie armour...and I have this." She lifted her right hand. "Think of it, Angela. The power of life and death is literally at my fingertips."

"But look at what it's done to you!" Angela snapped. "This virus is highly unstable-it's killing you!"

"As I said, one must make sacrifices."

"Is that what it will take for you to realise that you went too far? Losing your own life?!" Angela scowled. "You're insane…. To think I once loved you."

"You still do," Moira stated. She then grunted as the needle was drawn out of her arm. "Gah! Couldn't you have given me some sort of anaesthetic?"

"That would be showing compassion," Angela said rather coldly.

Moira chuckled. "You do have a dark side about you…I always knew you did."

"Keep quiet," Angela scolded her, heading to her computer to analyze the sample of Moira's infected blood.

"Maybe you should have joined Talon after all, Angela," Moira remarked. "It would be just like old times."

"I said shut up!" Angela growled. She then looked at the report on her computer screen. "Right, the antidote shouldn't take long to synthesise."

Moira looked over at Angela. "Angela...d'you know what made me fall in love with you?"

"The champagne," Angela sarcastically retorted.

The Irish woman chuckled. "No, no. It was your mind. I sat through countless people spewing drivel at that conference. Blathering on about new research, new technologies, things that I had long since outgrown. And then...there was Dr. Angela Ziegler. The woman who was more concerned about the applications of science, not the studies."

Angela sighed sadly. "But there's one other thing I'm concerned about," she said. "People. I care about helping others, not just furthering my own twisted research."

"You never could see what I saw," Moira remarked. "You were always too focused on being a doctor…but I always admired that determination in you."

"You were a doctor too, remember?" Angela reminded her, sucking up the antidote into a syringe. She looked at the pale green liquid for a moment or two, hoping that it would cure Moira's affliction.

"No," Moira said. "I was, am, and will remain a scientist. Because as I always say: Science will reveal the truth."

"But some truths can't be revealed by science, Moira," Angela said, sliding the needle into the side of Moira's neck.

Moira groaned in pain as the green fluid shot through her poisoned veins. The pain was unbearable, but she could handle it.

As Angela removed the needle, she continued, "Science can't explain why you felt attracted to me in Numbani. It can't tell you what made you fall in love with me, or..." Her voice trailed off.

"Or?" Moira asked.

"Or what...made me love you back."

Moira thought for a moment. "You…have a point."

Angela sat down beside her. "Just promise me one thing, Moira. One thing."

"I don't deal in promises, Angela," Moira responded.

"Please listen to me," she insisted. "Moira, I beg of you, please don't do something like this to yourself again. Don't put your own life at risk. That's all I ask."

Moira looked down at her still-purple arm, frowning. "My experiment was a success. There's no need to ask for that."

"Yes, there is," Angela argued. "Please, Moira, for the love of God, don't do this again."

"What are you saying?" Moira spat. "I can't just abandon my work."

"I CAN'T LOSE YOU AGAIN!" Angela screamed.

Both women were silent for a few seconds, Angela's words hanging in the air between them. "When you left me to join Talon," she went on, "it...it broke my heart. I don't want to feel that way again." She sighed, a single tear dripping down her cheek. "For once, Moira, please...please put someone else's needs above your own. I know how important your research is to you...but you need to realize how important you are to me."

Moira sighed. "It seems you are the one experiment that can never have a conclusion." She looked at her scarred arm, gently stroking it. "Perhaps you're right. Perhaps…my experiments need to end."

Angela shook her head. "Don't make promises that you don't intend to keep, Moira," she said. "I know that there are only two people on this Earth that matter to you...and both of them are sitting in this room. All I ask is that you don't test on yourself anymore. And...give me a call every now and again." She stroked Moira's cheek. "I miss you."

The red-haired woman looked at her blonde lover, confused. "How can you say that? After seeing...this?" She looked down at her hand.

Angela held her lover's augmented right hand. "Just because I don't agree with your methods doesn't mean I don't care about you, Moira. I...I love you."

"And I love you too, Angela," Moira replied. A small smirk formed on her face. "Love was always the one variable that I never took into account."

"But you see, love isn't something that can be calculated," Angela explained. "It isn't an equation, or a formula, or a string of code. It simply...is." She smiled at Moira. "And if I may be honest...as long as you're safe, I'll be happy."

Moira smirked. "You always were as stubborn as a mule, Dr. Ziegler." She slowly stood up. "I should be going. Talon are undoubtedly looking for me."

"Before you leave," Angela said, getting up as well, "there's one final dose of medicine I have to give you."

"Oh? And what would that be, pray tell?"

She cupped Moira's cheeks, leaning closer to the slender woman. "One dose of extra-strength love." She then closed her eyes, her lips pressing against Moira's.

Moira cupped Angela's cheeks with her long fingers, sighing softly. "I think that will see me through my journey home."

Angela smiled. "Take care, Irish stranger."

xXx

 **Author's note:** Here's an idea Matty was itching to do for a while, and also my first official Moircy fic! I think I'll probably write more of these two at some point :3


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